Bad Apple
It is with a heavy heart that I report the latest victim of Apple’s overzealous legal team. Johnny, who has diligently been running MacThemes for the past couple of years, writes in with the news. Apple is shutting down my first venture, and with it, a little aqua widget dies.
The website has enabled hundreds of thousands of Mac users to customize their GUI, and now has been hit with snail mail from Apple legal. I know Steve Jobs hates GUI customization. I hope MacThemes has been a major pain in his ass over the years. It’s been a pleasure serving you, the Mac community, with your GUI customization wants and needs over the years.
Dear Readers,
It is with sincere regret that I inform you about the official closing of MacThemes. This past weekend, I received a cease and desist letter from a law firm associated with Apple Inc., claiming that the dissemination of the “customized” materials featured on our website was in direct violation of Apple’s copyrights and patents. The letter insisted that MacThemes “(i) cease the development and distribution of these “customized” materials, (ii) take steps to remove any postings of the “customized” materials from any website or server under your control, and (iii) destroy any portion of the “customized” materials that infringes Apple’s rights or otherwise violates applicable law.â€
I am severely overwhelmed right now and find myself at a loss for words. Speaking to the future of the website, I do not know what fate has in store for MacThemes. Hopefully, we will make it through this quagmire and soon obtain a clearer view of the situation. I will post more information as it becomes available, however, in compliance with Apple’s requests, I have taken down both the news site and the forums.
Thank you for your support,
Jonathan Komisar
And for the record, best effort definitely goes to IGN for their pretty amazing Legend of Zelda movie trailer.
Comments
Up until this point, there have been 20 responses to “Bad Apple”:
WTF APPLE! RIP MacThemes 
April fools what?
Boooo
I hope it is April fools!
Feels a bit of an old joke, and it’s more annoying then funny.
Shutting down the front page is fine and harmless, I have no issues with that. But shutting down the forums for a full day is taking the joke too far.
old phail is old
rubbish prank
OMG MacThemes is gone for good! OMG it just happened to happen on April fools day. OMG this isn’t obviously fucking retarded at all. Everyone will laugh at this!
/sarcasm
There’s a link to this image on the page source:
http://www.saynotocrack.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/failso1.jpg
I think (and hope) it’s a joke.
Haha, I can live without MacThemes for a day it’s not that bad. Let’s just use Phill’s comments system as a forum.
What a bad April fools joke. Blaming another company for your own amusement is just bad taste. Did we not learn anything from the “hacked” MacUpdate/MacHeist incident?
Really?! I hope it’s a joke, seriously…
Wow… Is this another attempt for publicity for Ryu? He can get people to show interest in his site and also try to make Apple look bad in one fell swoop. But asshattery is OK as long as it is in the name of marketing… err… I mean April Fool’s Day jokes, right?
Phill Ryu
Yes, this is an April Fool’s joke. Just playing along with the MacThemes staff here. 
Almost seemed… too plausible though, huh? Don’t worry, MT will be back tonight.
I’ve been a member of MT since 2005..I was wondering what the hell I was gonna do for my mac customization needs!!! Christ install Vista! haha..seriously though the only way to make up for this is for there to be Aluminium and Zvend2 released when we get back in..
Oh my god !!!
April fool’s joke are killing me 
no!!!!!! Mac Themes is too cool for this! I hope it’s a joke!
Phew. So glad everyone else here thinks its an April Fool. *Let’s out the in take of breath slowly*
Jesus. I was getting worried.
I am selling right now my MacBook, my eMac and my iMac and switching to Windows beacuse of Apple’ attitude closing the site http://www.MacThemes.net.
That’s pure fascism.
Jorge Pinheiro.
Portugal
mdmunoz
April 01st, 2008 at 12:18amLOL I C WAT U DID THAR